Industry Influence and Interference

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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OIRA Meeting Round-Up

Apr 18, 2005 by Guest Blogger

OIRA has been keeping busy lately, meeting with representatives of Congress and industry over rulemakings. Here's a round-up of recent meetings:

On April 4, OIRA met again with congressional staff over the designation of special control for condoms. This time OIRA met with staff of Senator Durbin (D-IL) and three minority staff members from the House Government Reform Committee.
OIRA met with the US Chamber of Commerce and Lockheed Martin on April 7 over the Safety Act, which establishes limited liability for makers of anti-terrorist technologies.

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Deadly food poisoning breaks out while White House fiddles

Apr 9, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Listeria — the deadly foodborne pathogen with the second highest hospitalization rate and single highest fatality rate of all foodborne pathogens — is breaking out all over: FDA has ordered a nationwide recall of Sea Specialties brand smoked salmon, while a Michigan sausage maker, a Florida maker of chicken meat wraps, and a California producer of teriyaki chicken products all announced voluntary recalls of their products this week, because of potential Listeria contamination.

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White House Adds Rule to Hit List After Calling it 'Accomplishment'

Just three months after touting an interim rule controlling Listeria in ready-to-eat meats as a "regulatory reform accomplishment," the White House added that same rule to a list of regulations to be weakened or eliminated. Corporate special interests nominated the Listeria rule for rollbacks in response to a call from the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which used its annual draft report on the costs and benefits of regulations last February to request industry's nominations for regulatory protections to be weakened or eliminated.

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Waxman demands OIRA disclosure

Mar 24, 2005 by Guest Blogger

A while ago we reported on OIRA's secret meetings with industry to hatch anti-regulatory plans for the 109th Congress. Now Reps. Henry Waxman and Stephen Lynch have written Graham to demand he disclose information relating to those meetings.

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Fast Track List

Download the fast track list from the December report -- a list of deregulatory plans in early stages of the rulemaking process, which OIRA prompted the agencies to propel to high-priority status.

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White House Hit List

Download the White House's own hit list from the Dec. 2004 report -- not to be confused with the industry-nominated hit list from that same report, from which OIRA has recently announced 76 endorsed reg "reform" items.

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Pesticide info: too pesky a burden for business?

Mar 24, 2005 by Guest Blogger

As required by law, EPA calls on makers of pesticides to report on the "composition, toxicity, potential human exposure, environmental properties and ecological effects, and efficacy" of pesticides, so that the agency can "assess the human health and environmental risks associated with the product" and "ensure that pesticide residues in food meet the 'reasonable certainty of no harm' risk standard." We need to make sure that we aren't poisoning ourselves with pesticides, and an important component of our protection is the information that pesticide makers must disclose about the pesticides th

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White House Endorses Parts of Anti-Regulatory Hit List

The White House released the final version of its 2004-05 anti-regulatory hit list, with a report detailing 76 out of 189 items from the industry-nominated list that received the endorsement of the White House and agencies.

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OIRA Meets with Industry Over Mercury Rule

Mar 11, 2005 by Guest Blogger

OIRA met with industry representatives twice on March 2nd to discuss the clean air mercury rule. None of the attendees represented the public interest. Among the other attendees were representatives of the following:

National Association of Manufacturers
US Chamber of Commerce
A lobbying firm representing Florida Municipal Electric Association
Exxon Mobil

OIRA is currently reviewing the final rule for mercury emissions which under court order must be promulgated by March 15.

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Timber Industry Rewrites CA Forest Plan

Mar 10, 2005 by Guest Blogger

A new California forest management plan that would triple the annual timber harvest from national forests in the Sierra Nevada was (surprise, surprise) written by industry, according to a press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. A California Forest Association lawsuit would install the timber industry's deforestation plan and insulate the plan from further legal challenges through a settlement. PEER has filed in court to intervene in the settlement. From the press release:

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